


Nock Nock

by the_problem_with_stardust



Category: Marvel
Genre: Alternate Universe, Archery, Avengers Family, BAMF Clint Barton, Bad Puns, Bucky Barnes Feels, Ceiling Vent Clint Barton, Deaf Clint Barton, Don’t copy to another site, Lucky the pizza dog - Freeform, M/M, Puns & Word Play, Spies & Secret Agents, Team as Family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-25
Updated: 2019-12-25
Packaged: 2021-02-26 02:54:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,660
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21906307
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_problem_with_stardust/pseuds/the_problem_with_stardust
Summary: Bucky Barnes, formerly known as the Winter Soldier, is just trying to fit in as an agent of SHIELD. Too bad Agent Barton, codenamed Hawkeye, seems to have made it his personal mission to keep Bucky distracted.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Clint Barton
Comments: 19
Kudos: 155
Collections: Winterhawk Wonderland





	Nock Nock

**Author's Note:**

  * For [GWH](https://archiveofourown.org/users/GWH/gifts).



> Written for @gwhells for the 2019 Winterhawk Holiday Exchange!
> 
> I went with the prompt "everyone is an agent of SHIELD AU" but it kind of morphed into "Clint uses archery puns to flirt." I hope you enjoy it!!

For some reason, Bucky had assumed joining SHIELD meant he’d be working with _spies_. The faded memories from his time as the Soldier starred people who were like ice, sharp and deadly and cold. Which wasn’t to say that his new teammates were bad at their jobs. They were just… unconventional.

“Oh no!” A body fell from the ceiling vent and Bucky had to pretend like he hadn’t almost dropped his mug on the breakroom floor. Agent Barton straightened up, bright purple arrow in hand. “A fletch wound!”

Sure enough, the synthetic feathers were peeling back from the shaft. Barton flashed a bright grin at Bucky, as if checking to make sure he’d gotten the pun.

“Don’t you have a report to write?” Bucky asked, instead of doing something ridiculous like smiling back. He had a reputation to maintain after all.

Unphased, Barton tucked the arrow away and reached for his own mug. It was chipped in three places and the handle looked like it had been broken and glued on at least twice.

“I already submitted mine.” He waggled two bandaid-clad fingers. “And I have the battle scars to prove it.”

Barton hummed while he poured his coffee and Bucky watched out of the corner of one eye. It was shocking that someone so utterly disarming had such an impressive record. People who called Stevie a golden retriever had clearly never been on the receiving end of Barton’s puppy eyes.

“See ya, Barnes.” Barton waved with his mug, slopping coffee on himself.

Bucky glared into the depths of his own now-cold mug. He was almost a hundred years old and one of the most feared assassins in history.

His heart shouldn’t flip-flop whenever Barton batted his pretty blue eyes.

“I still don’t understand why we’re here.”

Steve looked from Romanoff to Barton, like he was trying to find the answers in their blank faces. Well, Romanoff’s face was blank. Barton was preoccupied with playing fetch with a one-eyed golden retriever.

“You’re being initiated,” Romanoff said, from where she was leaning against a tree and feigning nonchalance.

It was true that Romanoff and Barton had been partners for so long that it was rumored they shared one mind. Or, as Stark liked to say, one brain cell.

Barton threw the tennis ball and turned back to the group. “Lucky is a good judge of character.”

The dog, Lucky, tore after the ball and came back with a stick that he dropped at Barton’s feet. Steve crouched down and was tackled to the ground, laughing the whole time. He looked up from where he was buried under sixty pounds of golden fur and slobber.

“Is there another ball?” he asked.

“Well,” Barton drawled. “I guess I could try and _pull some strings_ to get another.”

He mimed drawing a bow before turning to Bucky, face lit up with his sunshine smile.

Natasha executed a frankly impressive eyeroll and slid away from the tree. “I refuse to be part of Clint’s mating rituals,” she said. “But welcome to the team.”

Bucky watched her go until Lucky head-butted him, looking for attention.

The roof top was empty. Bucky crouched next to his tripod, waiting for Steve’s signal.

Across the alley, Barton was covering an exit. As if sensing Bucky’s eyes on him, he stood up from where he was hunched over his bow case.

“Nock nock,” the radio crackled. Even though he was facing away, Bucky knew the bastard was grinning.

“You’re supposed to be watching the exit, Barton.”

“And you’re supposed to say _who’s there_.” Barton made a show of stringing a second arrow alongside the one already nocked. “Plus, Cap talks _forever_.”

Bucky flexed his hands, trying to keep up circulation in the frigid air. He sighed. “Alright, I’ll bite. Who’s there?”

There was a shout followed by gunshots from inside the warehouse, then the back exit slammed open. Before Bucky could react, Barton had loosed both arrows, pinning a man to the wall by the shoulders of his expensive suit.

“Two arrows,” Barton finished, and the smug note in his voice stirred something warm in Bucky’s stomach.

It was ridiculous and unprofessional. But Bucky was starting to like Barton and his stupid jokes.

Since moving to the SHIELD facility, Bucky had adapted to checking the rafters in the communal gym as soon as he walked in. Getting startled by a voice from above was not a great experience for a highly trained assassin. Especially when there were weapons involved.

Thanks to the habit, Bucky was aware that he and Steve had an audience. But the hawk kept quiet in his nest until Bucky managed to best Steve, super serum be damned.

“Hey!” Barton waved down from where he was draped along one of the ceiling beams. “Hey, Steve.”

Steve sighed, shoving uselessly at Bucky’s thigh. “Yeah Clint?”

Barton rolled to a sitting position, careless of the twenty-foot drop. “Have you ever tried blindfolded archery?”

Frowning at the question, Steve stopped struggling. “I can’t say that I have.”

“You don’t know what you’re missing,” Barton said, meeting Bucky’s eyes with that heart-stopping grin again.

The distraction gave Steve the opportunity he needed to break free. By the time Bucky was pinned to the mat, Barton was long gone. Steve just raised an eyebrow, a knowing look on his face.

Naturally, Bucky had to pin the punk again.

“This mission is a bit unusual.”

Maria Hill switched on the projector, showing surveillance footage of a base somewhere on the frozen tundra. Bucky’s team (well, technically Stevie’s team) was gathered in one of the briefing rooms.

“According to our intelligence, this is one of Hydra’s last remaining bases.” Hill flipped through a few more images, showing shipment logs and satellite footage. “Unfortunately, it’s located in the Arctic, where the only way in or out is via helicopter.”

“That’s not ideal.” Steve stood at the back of the group, with his thumbs hooked through his belt loops and regarding the proceedings with a look of intense concentration. It reminded Bucky of when he was younger, trying to take on the world.

Luckily, before he could fall too far into nostalgia, Hill dumped a heavy binder in front of him. “Agents Barton and Barnes will be on the ground. Here is the complete mission brief.”

Bucky flipped open to the middle of the brief, frowning at the transcript of an intercepted transmission.

Across the room, Barton was leafing through an identical binder. He looked up in time to catch Bucky’s eye.

“I am _a-quiver_ with excitement.” Barton scrunched his face in an exaggerated wink and Bucky fought down a blush.

Steve made a strange coughing noise that might’ve been an aborted laugh. Bucky shot an unamused look at his best friend, who was feigning innocence in a way that hadn’t been believable since he was a toddler.

He couldn’t believe he started out thinking SHIELD was a group of _professionals_.

Needless to say, the mission didn’t go as planned.

The base had been abandoned for years and the information leaked to SHIELD was likely part of the trap. Bucky wanted to be surprised, but after Barton’s chute failed to deploy and their botched landing took them several kilometers from the planned site, getting captured by Hydra seemed to fit pretty well with how his day was going.

“Why is it always dungeons,” Barton grumbled, tugging at where his chains were anchored into the roughly hewn ice walls of his cell.

Bucky didn’t respond. The manacles around his own ankles would be easy to deal with, but there was only one entrance into the ice tunnels beneath the base. With the instability of the Arctic ice sheets, Bucky was impressed that the tunnels hadn’t caved in already.

Really the only thing they had going for them was that Hydra had been expecting Steve. So now Bucky and Barton were stuck as bait.

“Widow says they’ll be here in ten.” Barton stopped messing with the cuffs on his wrists. He made a face at whatever Romanoff said after. “No, I’m not repeating that.”

Bucky raised an eyebrow. “They seriously didn’t search you?”

“Stark made these aids almost invisible. Or maybe they wanted Cap to get here quicker.”

Hydra certainly wasn’t doing themselves any favors. Bucky shifted on the frozen floor, trying to avoid thinking about cryo chambers.

“What else did Widow say?”

Barton shrugged, the metal links of his restraints scraping against the ice. “Just that I should make use of my captive audience and actually talk to you.”

“What is with you and puns?” Bucky asked, wedging the fingers of his metal arm under the cuff around one ankle. Might as well get himself and Barton free in case Stevie needed backup.

“Nat says the flirting part of my brain is broken.”

Bucky yanked too hard and the metal under his fingers crumpled. “You’re flirting with _me_.”

“Obviously not well.” With a self-deprecating laugh, Barton tried to run a hand through his short hair, but the chains stopped him.

Suddenly, all of the grinning and winking made sense. Bucky freed his other leg and shoved himself to his feet.

“I dunno Barton, I’d say you were pretty on target.”

Barton blinked at him, confused, before that familiar grin lit up his face.

“We’re doing this?” he asked. “Mutual flirting?”

“On one condition.”

“What’s that?” Barton scrambled to his feet, hunching in the too-small confines of their ice prison.

Bucky stepped forward, taking hold of the chains trailing from Clint’s wrists. “You call me Bucky.”

“Only if you call me Clint.”

Bucky broke through the chains with little effort. “Sounds good to me, Clint.”

They stood there for a moment and Bucky knew his smile was almost as wide as the one on Clint’s face. But the moment was shattered by a scuffle in the tunnels.

“Is it safe?” Romanoff called. “Steve has fragile sensibilities.”

Steve cursed from somewhere close by and Bucky couldn’t help but laugh.

**Author's Note:**

> Tumblr post with accompanying art [HERE!](https://theproblemwithstardust.tumblr.com/post/189872852314/nock-nock-bucky-barnes-formerly-known-as-the)


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